Lindsay Lohan, Mark Zuckerberg, 21 Savage and Ohio State students have all collided on the new rapidly growing social networking app, Clubhouse. Credit: Christian Harsa | Asst. Photo Editor
Lindsay Lohan, Mark Zuckerberg, 21 Savage and Ohio State students have all collided on the new rapidly growing social networking app, Clubhouse.
Instead of text posts or photos, Clubhouse brings a new twist to social media with interaction through audio clips and invites required to join the app. Many young adults have been flocking to the app, and Ohio State students are no exception.
Ernest Moore, a fourth-year in biology, said the app allows users to discuss and collaborate on a broad range of topics, such as economics, sports, music, technology and even dating. The app offers spaces for people with all types of motives, including networking with professionals, learning new things, debating or simply hanging out with friends.
“It’s pretty much anything you can imagine that you can talk about; people are making rooms for them,” Moore said.
The app’s main feature –– audio-only chat rooms that can be set to either public or private –– is composed of moderators and listeners. Moderators can chime in to speak at any moment, but others in the chat room have to be given permission by the moderators to speak. There is no video element to the chat rooms, only user voices and profile pictures.
Clubhouse creators Paul Davison and Rohan Seth said instead of typing out a post and hitting send, users are engaged in a dialogue.
“The intonation, inflection and emotion conveyed through voice allow you to pick up on nuance and form uniquely human connections with others. You can still challenge each other and have tough conversations — but with voice there is often an ability to build more empathy,” Davison and Seth said on their website.
The audio-only app launched in the spring of 2020 and has since grown from about 1,500 users in May 2020 to an estimated six million users this month, according to a report from tech analyst Vajresh Balaji. The user base has grown significantly in the last month as celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Drake and Tiffany Haddish have appeared in chat rooms on the app.
“The cool thing about it is you have all these celebrities on here, like any other app, but you might have the ability to speak to them, more so than if you were in any other app,” Moore said.
Kayla Malcolm, a fourth-year in communications, said she believes users may feel more comfortable with the audio-only format of Clubhouse, compared to video-formatted apps.
“I know a lot of students who may have Zoom classes, they don’t want to turn their cameras on,” Malcolm said. “And I know people who personally dread meetings because they don’t want their camera on.”
Bryce Newsome, a second-year in public affairs, said without posting visual media besides a profile picture, he thinks that a lot of pressure is taken off users.
“I just noticed how much confidence people could get from just being able to speak and use their knowledge, rather than have to worry about their image and other things you have to worry about with other social media platforms,” Newsome said.
Because the app isn’t fully developed and the creators wanted to increase the user base slowly, they implemented a waitlist that can only be bypassed by receiving an invite from another user, according to a post on the company’s website. The allure of the private app has allowed for Clubhouse invites to be sold on websites such as Reddit and eBay for anywhere between $30 to $200.
In a message shown to new users when they open the app, Davison and Seth said they plan on eventually launching the app publicly, but Malcolm said she believes the exclusivity has added to the app’s success.
“I think it definitely has more of the ability to be sustained and grow if they kept it to be an app that was exclusive,” Malcolm said. “But I think the more popular it becomes, I feel like those who have been on the app since its early development could kind of grow tired of the app, because it won’t have the same features as it had.”
Only time will tell whether the app will rise to the popularity of huge social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat, but Newsome said he thinks ultimately the 18- to 30-year-old age group will decide its fate.
“The young generation often pushes culture, which pushes trends,” Newsome said. “I think that also diversity pushes trends. When you have people with diverse mindsets, diverse backgrounds coming together on an app, especially the younger generation, you’ll have a transaction that will allow the app to grow and keep on getting popular.”
